Anatomy of a fake Lincoln

Bogus portrait of Mary Todd Lincoln is fertile ground for the conservator who uncovered the fraud

April 16, 2012|By William Hageman, Chicago Tribune reporter

Portrait of a woman, alleged to be of Mary Todd Lincoln by Francis Carpenter, as it appeared in the New York Times in 1929. (Courtesy of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum)

It was a fine portrait of Mary Todd Lincoln, with a compelling story attached to it.

In truth, however, it wasn't Abraham Lincoln's wife who was pictured, and the story of the painting was pure fiction, part of a con perpetrated against Lincoln's heirs in the 1920s. Subsequently, The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and the state of Illinois were all suckered in as well over the decades.

The full story will be revealed next week at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield when conservator Barry Bauman presents "The Demise of Mary Lincoln: An Artistic Conspiracy," a lecture that will explain the scam and how he detected it.

"I used 'demise' because this is the demise of the painting. The painting can finally be put to rest," said Bauman, a Fellow of the American Institute for Conservation who has had a 40-year career in the conservation field. The former associate conservator of paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago now works pro bono for museums and nonprofits from his River Forest studio.

"It will be quirky and fun, and a little bit mysterious. That's the goal," says James Cornelius, curator of the Lincoln Collection at the library.

Should be no trouble with Bauman onstage.

For example, when he does major projects such as this, he will write a case study, explaining the history of the work, what his research found and how the restoration was completed. This time he used an interesting conceit: He wrote the case study as an exchange of letters between himself and Mary Lincoln. (The reader has to ignore certain facts — such as her death in 1882 — to play along. The letters are available at baumanconservation.com.)

She writes to Barry Bauman, college student, in 1965, out of the blue and says she needs his help to uncover a scandal. He, in the letters, responds, and they go back and forth as she reveals details of the scam — details he actually learned during his work on the painting — and urges him on to completion of the project.

As part of his research, Bauman read all 650 surviving Mary Lincoln letters, and cleverly worked her exact words — sentences and even full paragraphs — into her letters to him.

"I wrote it on two levels," he said. "It is written for scholars who can read the letters Mary Lincoln sent me and be dying with laughter knowing where these lines came from. On the other hand, it was written for someone who wants to read about the discovery of the forgery. They can read it as a document, without any citations, a fanciful approach to a case study."

In his case study, and in a conversation at his studio, Bauman points a finger at Lew Bloom (real name Ludwig Pflum) as the source of the forgery. It was Bloom, a vaudevillian, horse trainer and "art expert (who) dabbled in oils," according to his obituary, who sold the portrait to the president's heirs around 1929.

He also sold them quite a story:

Mary Lincoln, according to an affidavit from Bloom that was attached to the back of the painting, commissioned the portrait as a surprise gift for her husband. The supposed artist was Francis B. Carpenter, who, historians note, lived in the Lincoln White House while he worked on his most famous work, "First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln," painted in 1864. The president was assassinated before Mary was able to present him with the painting, the affidavit said, and the devastated widow told Carpenter to destroy it. He instead sold it to Philadelphia shipbuilder Jacob Neafie. Neafie later gave it to Susan Bloom, Lew's sister, in appreciation for her caring for his wife Annie. Lew Bloom claimed he inherited the painting upon his sister's death.

On Feb. 12, 1929, The New York Times ran a photo of the portrait and story headlined "Rarely seen portrait of Mrs. Lincoln" (the Tribune Sunday Magazine did a short piece in 1965, basically rewriting the Times story but also erroneously claiming the image was "published here for the first time").

The Times story said the portrait was on exhibition at the Milch Galleries in New York. Ensuing publicity, and the fact that America "rediscovered" Mary Lincoln to a degree, enabled Bloom to sell the painting to the Lincoln family. The price hasn't been discovered, but it has been estimated at $2,000-$3,000. The family in 1976 donated it to the state of Illinois, and after some restoration work it was hung in the governor's mansion in 1978, where it resided for 32 years. (It was also insured for an undisclosed amount; James Cornelius said the $400,000 figure that has been bandied about is in the ballpark.)

Then, Bauman entered the picture.

"James asked me to come down to Springfield in September (2010) to examine four portraits. I walk into the room where these are hanging and I see the portrait of Mary is sitting there. And I say, 'Tell me what you know and I'll tell you what I know.'"